


The Cruelty of a Brother

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Brotherly Love, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Difficult Decisions, Fix-It, Gen, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 15:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14452464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: Asgard and her people are alive. One person in particular isn’t happy about that. Thor doesn’t care.





	The Cruelty of a Brother

**Author's Note:**

> Written the night of the _Infinity War_ premiere for veliseraptor as a soothing chaser. Please note: at the time of this writing, I have not personally seen the movie yet, so the details are hazy, but the sentiment is very very real, so I am posting this as-is before I see the movie and want to rewrite this in six different and increasingly angry ways. Tagging for spoilers just in case. PS: this is my headcanon and no one can take this away from me.
> 
> If you're over on Tumblr, please consider following me at [gaslightgallows.tumblr.com](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com) for more fic, reblogs about writing, and lots of randomness. Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

Thor slowly mounted the grand, curving marble stairs to his old chambers. He wasn't expecting to sleep very well in them, even as tired as he was. His mind and heart were still too unsettled, especially after the conversation he had just had with his father... 

He came to the landing, rounded the corner into the corridor, and found his mother hovering around Loki's closed door. His heart seized and his eye (only the one; he had been standing in the vortex of the Time Stone when it had been activated, so he had not been restored) filled with tears, and it took him a full minute of standing and staring at her to remember that she was not dead. 

Was no longer dead. 

Frigga turned from Loki's unyielding door with a sigh, and her face lighted up upon seeing her elder son. "Thor!" She came with arms outstretched and Thor pulled her close and held her as though she were the rarest and most fragile crystal. After a moment, he felt her hand on his shorn hair, and his great shoulders shook with unshed tears. "There, my son," she soothed, stroking the short soft bristles on the back of his head. "I know not what you and Loki have suffered, but it is over. You are home now."

Home. 

They were in Asgard, and Asgard was alive once more, but more than ever, Thor understood the sorrow in Captain Roger's eyes whenever he spoke of the time and place he had been born in, the people he had known before his sacrifice and the decades spent in the ice. The city remained, but the home... 

"We need time," Thor said, straightening and wiping away his tears on the back of his hand. "There are some battles that carve wounds in the heart that take more than a homecoming feast to heal."

Frigga's face creased with worry. "I fear that may be doubly true of your brother. He will not see me."

Thor frowned, and his eye flicked to Loki's chamber door. "For him to avoid you... after everything we have gone through, I thought he would be pleased to find you again, even if nothing else was to his liking."

"I fear that the trials you have weathered together have addled his mind... he insists that I am either a ghost or an illusion, sent to torment him."

"Ah." Thor pressed his lips together. "Perhaps he will speak to me. I think he will." He smiled and grasped his mother's shoulders reassuringly, and kissed her forehead, feeling terribly old. "Be at ease, Mother. I will tend to him."

She cast a backward glance at Loki's door, picking apprehensively at her hands, as she always did when there was something on her mind.

As Loki always did, too. 

"We will take supper in the family dining room tonight," she told him. "Bring your brother, if he will come."

"I will."

He turned and watched her go, descending the stairs with light, graceful steps. There was a sharp and painful tension radiating from his gullet, as though the tearing sobs he had been holding back since stepping foot on Asgard again were determined to claw their way free. 

All he could do was swallow them once more, and continue on. 

His feet were heavy as he approached Loki's door. He raised a hand to announce his presence, and then on a hunch, tested the latch. 

"Don't you ever _knock_?" Loki snapped from his huddled spot on his bed, not bothering to turn over. 

"Knocking just gives you an excuse to ignore me. How'd you know it was me, anyway?"

"You're the only one who _doesn't_ knock." Loki curled into an even tighter ball. "Thor? ...Are you real?"

"As real as I've ever been."

"Prove it. Tell me something only you would know."

"Oh, come on, that's a trick question. You spy on me all the time - I don't know anything you don't know. But," Thor continued, before Loki's hackles could rise too much, "I know it's not out of malice, or even out of self-preservation. It's just a habit, and a very comforting one. Annoying, but comforting."

He could practically see Loki rolling his eyes right through the back of his head, but he relaxed visibly. "What is all of this, Thor? Is this Asgard some sort of... perverse shared hallucination? Has the Black Order trapped us in the same madness?"

"I don't think so, no," said Thor gently. "What is the last thing you remember?"

"...Thanos. Killing you. Murdering our people one by one. Demanding I give him the tesseract in exchange for your life and the lives of our people... and I did it, Thor. I couldn't let him... I couldn't..." Loki broke off, and then suddenly flipped over and onto his feet. "I died. He took the tesseract and..."

Thor reached out and pulled him into a tight hug, digging his fingers into the leather of Loki's jacket. "I know," he said hoarsely. "He made me watch."

"So he killed you too, in the end... Brother, I am so sorry..." Tears formed in Loki's eyes and spilled down his cheeks. "But why are _you_ here, in this... miserable limbo? Because this can't be Valhalla."

In spite of everything, Thor had to smile at that. "Why not? Mother's here. I'm here."

"Yes, but _I'm_ here, and we both know that—"

"After helping to save Asgard, and sacrificing yourself to save me – Loki, that was an act of true nobility. If anyone deserved to be in the hall of heroes, it would be you."

His words were warm with honest praise, but it only deepened Loki's suspicions. "You said 'if'."

Thor's smile faded. "Yes."

"Then... we are not dead?"

"No, Loki. And neither is Mother, or Father. Or Asgard." He took a deep breath. "Not anymore."

For a second or two, Loki could only stare at him, utterly aghast. Then, _"How?"_

Thor spread his hands. "Strange," he said simply. "I convinced the human called Star-lord to bring us to where Asgard had once been, and Strange... restored it. Turned back the years, unextinguished the dead..." The expression on Loki's face gutted him from top to tail, and whatever joy Thor had felt vanished in a snap. "It is perhaps six months before the Convergence. You were restored right back into the dungeons, actually. I had to do some impressive convincing to get Father to have you released and brought here..."

But Loki had stopped listening. "So... it was for nothing," he said bitterly. "All for nothing. My 'noble sacrifice'... rendered entirely moot. All you really needed was that second-rate infant sorcerer after all, and now you get a chance to do it all over again, be the hero—"

Thor grabbed his neck. "Do you want to know how much I had to threaten Strange before he would bring you back?" he growled, his breath hot on Loki's face. "What I swore to do to him if he did not grant me this favor? Because even you would be horrified. Do you _understand_ me, brother? I was no hero when I promised to roast him alive from the inside-out, one organ at a time, and knowing that I would have to give up friends and freedom and all the good memories of our father to do this. I know too much about Odin to be easy with him now, and he _knows_ that I know. Because you, Loki, are worth more to me than that innocence." 

Loki stared at him, and then let out an incredulous laugh. "All I'm worth is the price of the bounty on my head. You know that. If we've returned to before the Convergence, then he's still out there, Thor, Thanos is out there, waiting for us – my death is the only thing that's worthwhile."

"You have worth, Loki, _you_ , not your death." He pressed his forehead to Loki's. "You are worth more to me alive and broken than noble and dead. And I cannot fear Thanos anymore. He already took the one thing I had left that mattered. It took cruelty to get you back."

His eye blazed with blue fire. "And if it takes cruelty to keep you with us this time, then so be it."

Loki didn't quite believe him, he could read that on his pale face. But he pulled Thor into a frantic hug and clung to his brother, and if that was all the thanks Thor ever got... then he was satisfied.


End file.
